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Planted Tank Light Temp K Question

2K views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  malkore 
#1 ·
I have a heavily planted 23g Via Aqua 680 tank. I am filtering with and Ehiem 2126 Pro and also have a small Rio 50 power head for slight surface agitation. I just started CO2 injection today and have brought the ph from 7.1 with Kh 3 to 6.9 in last 6 hours. Target is 6.7 or 6.8. I will control it there with Milwaukee Controller.

My lighting is as follows 2 36w Compact Flourescents One Pink (8100k) and White (7100K) in the rear and a Blue (10,000K) and White (7100K) in front. I opted for the blue to help with colors of the fish. My question is this.
I know that the plants appreciate and utilize the light in the 6700 to 7100K range more so than the higher K temp levels. I would presume that they will however get some benefit from the 10,000K as well. If not I can replace it with an all white (7100K) twin bulb tube and keep the pink and white in rear.
My 74w lighting equates to about 3.7 to 4 wpg as after substrate, wod etc I beleive the real volume is more like 18 to 20g.

Your thoughts.

Thanks
Bob
 
#3 ·
More important for plant utilization is the PAR Value. I borrowed this from Hydromall.

Plants, however, respond primarily to light in the range of 400 – 700 NM (nanometers). Rather than working in footcandles, growers are better off looking at the measure of energy known as PAR (photosynthetically active radiation). This is expressed in uMOLS (micromoles) and can be simply measured using a Quantum meter.
What we really need is a good lamp spectral analysis chart. It would be quite a bit of work to measure the popular bulbs we use and produce the charts. Some of the info is readily available spread all over the net specifically on some of the reef based sites. If we could only get Dr. Sanjay Yoshi into plants along with reefs, he has measured many bulbs and ballasts and reported the findings.



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gnatster
 
#5 ·
Hey Urkevitz, how do you feel about the colouring of the 10,000k? I'm using it too (Coralife) and I find not only does everything look really green, but it washes out the more delicate colours. For example, I have a female betta that's almost completely white, and under the 10,000k she looks it, but once the light goes out you can see that her fins have a delicate blue colouring.

I'm tempted to switch to the 6700k, but I'm afraid it'd be too yellow.
 
#7 ·
Amanda, I am using the 10,000k and 6700k in my 4 bulb setup. I agree that the 10,000k washes out the colors. If I had to chose one bulb I would go with the 6700k, is is yellower but the colors of the fish and plants show more. I like the 10,000k and 6700k combination because it looks bright and sunny without being too yellow.
 
#9 ·
I'm running one 10000K and one 8800K (96W PC) over my 40 gal tank. When I used two 10000K it was almost blindingly white. The 8800K tones it down so that it looks like a bright sunny day.

The only fish I have with subtle coloring would be my Congos and they look nice under this combo...but not as vibrant as when I had a Power-Glo (18000K NO tube which had a purple cast) over the tank. But what can you do with the limited range of colors available in PC bulbs.:icon_conf
 
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